This disclosure relates to a gas turbine engine, and more particularly to a buffer system that can provide buffer cooling air to cool portions of the gas turbine engine, including at least one shaft of the gas turbine engine.
Gas turbine engines typically include at least a compressor section, a combustor section and a turbine section. During operation, air is pressurized in the compressor section and is mixed with fuel and burned in the combustor section to generate hot combustion gases. The hot combustion gases are communicated through the turbine section which extracts energy from the hot combustion gases to power the compressor section and other gas turbine engine modes.
Gas turbine engines typically include shafts that support a plurality of airfoil supporting rotors of the compressor section and the turbine section. For example, in a two-spool turbofan engine, an inner shaft (i.e., a low speed shaft) and an outer shaft (i.e., a high speed shaft) can be incorporated. These shafts, in particular the inner shaft, can be exposed to relatively high torque loading and stresses that result from size limitations caused by the need for the shaft to traverse the rotor structure inboard of the radially inner disk bores.